Golf enthusiasts range in ability from the beginning duffer to the highly skilled touring professionals who have become household names. However, all golfers face the same fundamental task when playing a course; viz., to complete a round using the fewest number of strokes within the capability of the golfer. For the beginning golfer, there are numerous basic skills to develop including driving, fairway play, playing out of traps and putting.
As a golfer becomes more skilled, nuances of the individual aspects of play, which at first are entirely ignored, become increasingly relevant as the golfer strives to improve his/her game. Putting is an area in which such variables as distance, green condition, grass height, slope, undulations overall natural break, windage, etc. between the ball position and the hole which must be mentally taken into account and "algebraically summed" as a golfer prepares to stroke the ball, usually in a direction somewhat offset from a straight shot because of these variables.
A subtle factor in the natural break which a ball may follow during its traverse toward the hole following a putting stroke is the fact that, all other things being equal, greens break to the west. This factor, sometimes identified as first expressed by the immortal Ben Hogan, is often omitted from the golfer's mental appraisal of a putting shot for either of two reasons: the golfer is unaware of the factor or it is difficult to determine dead west in the context of the immediate positions of the ball and the hole on a particular green.
Given that many golfers are aware of the natural western break factor and wish to take it into account for each relevant putting stroke, it is apparent that it would be highly desirable to provide a convenient expedient for determining the direction of dead west at any position on any green during a round of golf, and it is to this end that the present invention is directed.